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On Tuesday, the Bishops called an emergency meeting. It took some time to reach a consensus and to finalize the statement. After all was said and done, the Bishops released their Pastoral Statement: Seeking Truth, Restoring Integrity. We were waiting as to whether or not they too would call for the resignation of The President. They didn’t. They, however, laid out 6 recommendations in their Pastoral Statement.

In all honesty, if this pastoral statement came to me in paper form, I would have asked for the second page. If I could summarize the whole statement, it’s this: Corruption is bad. Let’s do good. Media bad. We’re good. Let everyone testify!

Were you asking for more? Yes, but they shy away from the meat of the problem. Arroyo and Corruption at the very top.

Here’s the statement in full, (analysis and opinion follows)

Beloved People of God:

Greetings in the peace of the Lord!

Today in the midst of restlessness and confusion, we come to you as pastors, for that is our precise role. We do not come as politicians whose vocation it is to order society towards the common good. Our message contributes to the flourishing of a democracy which must not be built only on political formulae.

We face today a crisis of truth and the pervading cancer of corruption. We must seek the truth and we must restore integrity. These are moral values needing spiritual and moral insights.

Therefore, we address this pastoral statement to everyone particularly you our beloved people and in a special way to our political rulers and officials.

We are convinced that the search for truth in the midst of charges and allegations must be determined and relentless, and that the way to truth and integrity must be untrammeled, especially at the present time when questions about the moral ascendancy of the present government are being raised.

For this reason, we strongly:

1. Condemn the continuing culture of corruption from the top to the bottom of our social and political ladder;

2. Urge the President and all the branches of government to take the lead in combating corruption wherever it is found;

3. Recommend the abolition of EO 464 so that those who might have knowledge of any corruption in branches of government, may be free to testify before the appropriate investigating bodies;

4. Ask the President to allow her subordinates to reveal any corrupt acts, particularly about the ZTE-NBN deal, without being obstructed in their testimony no matter who is involved;

5. Appeal to our senators and the ombudsman to use their distinct and different powers of inquiry into alleged corruption cases not for their own interests but for the common good;

6. Call on media to be a positive resource of seeking the truth and combating corruption by objective reporting without bias and partiality, selective and tendentious reporting of facts;

For the long term we reiterate our call for “circles of discernment” at the grassroots level, in our parishes, Basic Ecclesial Communities, recognized lay organizations and movements, religious institutions, schools, seminaries and universities. It is through internal conversion into the maturity of Christ through communal and prayerful discernment and action that the roots of corruption are discovered and destroyed. We believe that such communal action will perpetuate at the grassroots level the spirit of People Power so brilliantly demonstrated to the world at EDSA I. It is People Power with a difference. From the grassroots will come out a culture of truth and integrity we so deeply seek and build. We instruct our CBCP Commissions to take active role including networking for this purpose.

May the Lord bless us in this sacred undertaking to build a new kind of Philippines and may our Blessed Mother be our companion and guide in this journey to truth and integrity.

For and on behalf of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines:

+Angel Lagdameo, D.D.
Archbishop of Jaro
President, CBCP
February 26, 2008

But what the Bishops fail to explain is what would happen if The President refuses to heed the six recommendations. What if EO 464 is not revoked or set aside. Short of saying, do good, they do not call for accountability. It’s a safe statement, and a statement that is proof positive why The Bishops are no longer the lead in calling for accountability, but instead making vague statements that any high school student could have written. They stand on the sidelines, and wait until more sectors clamor for change. In this regard, any future moves against The President will have no signature of The Bishops’ involvement. They have chosen to take a hands off approach.

I’m fine with it. We have no problems.

The problem will now be with The Bishops themselves. As I have said, Arroyo will probably defy the call for all her officials to testify openly. The bishops will now have the task as to what kind of statement to issue then. I guess they weren’t ready to call for any action, and in this case, they were able to buy themselves time.

But Arroyo and her officials have already been flip flopping on their statements. Because of Arroyo’s Sunday statement saying that she knew of irregularities, either she is telling a lie, her officials are telling a lie, or all of them are telling a lie. In any case, they are all telling lies. And faced with this fact, what then will the Bishops do?

What if, as is already happening, The Ombudsman and DOJ investigations are one sided? What shall the Bishops do?

They will have no choice, they must then become the followers of a movement for an Arroyo Resignation, a movement that has already started without them.

This is why I’m not worried, they are not the end all to the gates of truth. They are not the guardians of truth. They are not above any other Filipnios. They are men, they too have sinned, they too fall short of the glory of God. We are equal, and their decision is not better than the decisions being made by those asking for Arroyo’s resignation.

We respect their right to stand on the sidelines. That is their right. But let’s not delude ourselves either because a resignation call from the Bishops would have strengthened the growing call for Arroyo to step down. The consolation of course, is that this is the statement of the body politic, and not the statement of individual bishops. If individual Bishops were to release statements of their own, believe me there would have been a few who are already past the point of calling for Arroyo’s resignation.

So, at this point, we don’t know the answer to “or what?”, but sooner or later, as the statements of Arroyo and her subordinates become even more tangled and blurred, as the lies start to pile up even more we can ascertain that these Bishops too have a tipping point. Let’s hope, sooner rather than later.

tags: arroyo administration, bishops, cbcp, culture of corruption, nbn deal, pastoral statement